


Haunting (me)

by Pixeled



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, M/M, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 11:49:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20153107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pixeled/pseuds/Pixeled
Summary: It was curiosity that made Vincent bring him to Kalm, to his austere little house. It was preservation that he didn’t immediately take him to Reeve, or perhaps some selfish notion that he could set things right. That he could atone for spilling his son’s blood.





	Haunting (me)

**Author's Note:**

> I literally wrote this on the train this morning while listening to Halsey’s “Haunting” on repeat. The idea came to me and would not leave until I wrote it. I’m sorry?

‘_Cause I've done some things that I can't speak_

_And I tried to wash you away, but you just won't leave_

_So won't you take a breath and dive in deep?_

_'Cause I came here so you'd come for me_

_I'm begging you to keep on haunting_

_I'm begging you to keep on haunting me_

_I'm begging you to keep on haunting_

_I know you're gonna keep on haunting me_

Vincent’s eyes were hollow and so deep in the cave that they almost looked black tinged with crimson, like the blood that spilled from one of his bullet holes, oozing danger, oozing death. He stared fixedly ahead, his senses telling him he wasn’t alone. He wasn’t, though, was he? She was there, her hands clasped as if in prayer, her eyes closed as if she were just sleeping like so many nights he’d watch her breathe in the quiet dark. But her chest did not rise. Did not fall. She was not alive. But not dead. Atoning, for a life of sin. Once, when he was sleeping inside his coffin, he imagined their hearts aligned. But his heart was long gone. Hojo had ripped it from his chest, chucked it in a bucket, bullet wedged firmly in its thick muscle. He’d removed the bullet, weighed the thing that had beat only for her, and then, with him watching, threw it in the medical waste bin with a sinister smile on his face. He’d been made to watch everything, even when he was still alive. Hojo, his pale cold fingers which couldn’t possibly warm hers, wrapping around hers. Now that he was dead he still watched. He watched the world turn around him, watched as everyone moved on but him.

He was still here.

He was still looking for signs that she still loved him, when he knew that since he’d felt her presence here years ago she had been silent. She was at rest, finally. Why couldn’t he be?

The feeling of something _other _steadily rose like bile in the back of his throat, but he didn’t move, dared not move.

“My . . . Goddess?” A voice, clear and child-like, amplified and bone-weary called out in the cave, molesting the silence like a dagger in the cold night blooming hot blood. The cave seemed to crackle, to expand, and wings beat in Vincent’s chest almost like a heart. Chaos stirred, lifted his sleeping head like a child whose nightmares clung to him like flesh. Amber light fell in a cone around him and he knew his eyes flashed with life that was not his. He felt Chaos smile his razor tooth smile, felt the sharp jut of wings press against his back for a moment, and then, just as he had raised his horned head, he put his head back down and slumbered once more, the amber light disappearing.

“M-Minerva? No . . . Not my . . . Goddess . . .”

“Lu . . . crecia,” Vincent answered, his voice low and gravelly with disuse. He whirled around to see who disturbed this place, this sacred tomb.

A man. A man with hair like a halo of fire, with eyes touched by something fierce and mad, the blue so startling in the low light that they glowed. Mako. That could only mean one thing. But just as he thought it, he saw the ShinRa insignia stamped on the man’s wide belt, the distinctive mark of SOLDIER. He was covered in sticky blackened blood, a black wing furled at his side, matted with more of the blood. His face, dirty with mud and dirt, was streaked with tears like a child’s face, honest and heart-broken in a way that belied innocence lost.

Vincent had only seen that kind of wing once.

_Mother . . ._

Sephiroth.

Before Vincent could draw Cerberus, the man crumbled at his feet. Sighing, he bent to gather him in his arms and he left the cave.

The man cried in his unconscious state. Sometimes he murmured about his goddess, but sometimes he called out for someone else.

Sephiroth.

_Are you sure?_

_Am I sure? Am I sure?!_

It was curiosity that made Vincent bring him to Kalm, to his austere little house. It was preservation that he didn’t immediately take him to Reeve, or perhaps some selfish notion that he could set things right. That he could atone for spilling his son’s blood.

Yes, he knew Sephiroth was his son, though he never told any of the others about it. It was his sin to bear. Though they had all killed Sephiroth, his blood was only on Vincent’s hands.

Years ago, when he had impregnated Lucrecia with Sephiroth, when he knew well enough that she was married and that what he was doing was wrong and sinful even though he loved her and it felt _right _he knew it had set a chain of events in motion. Hojo, who hated him with a fire that could burn eternally, who knew exactly what he was doing with his wife, was already willing to put a bullet in his heart, but when Lucy told him she was pregnant, that the child was his, Vincent had threatened the project. He threatened to take Lucy away from everything, from ShinRa, from _him _and Hojo snapped and put that bullet right where it belonged, where it was destined to go. Then, even then, it was like he had ripped Sephiroth from Lucrecia’s womb and murdered him, a half-formed thing. His whole life Sephiroth had never known the truth of _anything _and it was all Vincent’s fault.

So when Vincent scrubbed this man’s cold pale skin of dirt, grime, and blood, he imagined he was bathing his son as an infant, taking care of what he was always supposed to but never could do.

Finally, after an hour of washing him in his almost catatonic state, the man was clean. Vincent found some clothes for him. They were of similar heights, although Vincent was leaner, but his looser clothing fit him. A ratty black t-shirt, black cotton pants. He deposited him in the bed. It was dusty. Vincent hadn’t slept in weeks by now. Every time he slept, he’d wake up screaming, wings beating in his throat. It was better when he slept in the closet, or beneath the bed, or even in the crawl space beneath the stairs, the weight of the space encircling him reminding him of his coffin, but he still had nightmares every time, and he feared what he might do.

The man stretched his arm out, hand closing around Vincent’s claw. He moaned softly, eyes half open, little slivers of cloudless sky.

“Stay,” he murmured.

Vincent hesitated, but then he crawled into the bed beside the man and curled against his back. It felt strange. The last time he’d done something like this, it had been with Lucrecia. It had been more than thirty years ago. But somehow it felt . . . right.

He hadn’t intended to fall asleep, but the rhythmic breathing of the man beside him, the warmth he exuded, the feeling of someone _alive _next to him made him drift off. He didn’t know he’d been sleeping until the man gently turned and faced him, fingers tracing his features. Vincent startled awake. No one had touched him that way in so long. It was gentle. It was curious. Questioning.

“Sephiroth?” The man asked, then shook his head, looking lost. “Where. Where am I?”

“Valentine. Vincent Valentine,” Vincent said. In his mind, his memory flashed to his Turk days, how he’d state his name. He’d almost tumbled his identification number out of his lips, still imprinted on his memory after all these years. “You’re in Kalm. In my bed.”

“Oh,” the man said, as if accepting it. As if it were that simple.

“Who are you?” Vincent asked, edging carefully as if that one question might make the man crumble.

“Who . . . am I? What was I doing? I . . .”

“You keep calling out for Sephiroth,” Vincent said carefully. “And a . . . Goddess?”

“Oh,” the man said thoughtfully. Suddenly he shot up on the bed, rummaging around, eyes wild. “My sword! My armor!”

“It’s around,” Vincent said, sitting up. It was in the other room. The room Vincent had dedicated to his guns and various other weaponry.

“I was . . . I was trying to do something,” the man said, frowning. “I was . . . my name . . . is Genesis. I think. That seems right.” Then he noticed the wing and touched it with all the wonder of a child, his fingers trembling. “A monster. That’s right. I’m a monster.”

“I’m a monster too,” Vincent said. He had hoped it would be reassuring, but he didn’t know. He’d smashed his PHS years ago. Only showed up places when he felt like it. He wasn’t fit to reassure anyone. He wasn’t human.

Over the next few days Vincent fell into a rhythm with Genesis. He left his house only to get food, to get whatever Genesis needed. The townspeople watched him suspiciously, knowing he was _other_. They knew exactly who he was, what he represented, even if they didn’t willingly talk to him. They feared him. Maybe respected him. Maybe hated him. But his money was as good as anyone else’s, and they were all struggling to make a living after everything had been set in motion.

When Vincent returned on the second day, he’d caught Genesis trying to claw his wing out in the tub. Blood was mingling in the water. Vincent had doused him with potions, had drawn out Cerberus, tried to restore him with curative Materia. It helped, but Genesis did not heal _right_. The wound was jagged and Genesis kept trying to dig his fingers inside it.

“I was degrading,” Genesis whispered. “I remember now. I was trying. Trying to get Sephiroth to share his cells with me. He. He told me to _rot_.”

“Who was Sephiroth to you?” Vincent asked. He cleaned the wound as best he could, dressed it with gauze.

“What wasn’t Sephiroth to me?” Genesis whispered. That was all he offered. He went quiet after that. He sulked in the living room. Vincent gave him space. He left the quiet house. He went into the woods, let Galian hunt. Feeling the grass and dirt beneath his paws felt good. When he sank his teeth into an animal’s throat he felt powerful, good, even though it was all wrong. When he returned he felt sated, but sick. Even though it had been Galian who ate, it was him who was trying to digest. And he was dead. He threw up violently like he knew he would. Genesis padded on bare feet toward the bathroom and held his hair back. Vincent was ashamed.

After that they laid pressed together in the dark, the only light that of their eyes, glowing with mako. Vincent’s a crimson red, the red of his father’s eyes, and his father before him. Genesis’s the color of cloudless sky.

The first time Genesis kissed him, Vincent had moved his face away. The second was more insistent and Vincent let him. He had even kissed back. It wasn’t that he didn’t find Genesis attractive, because he did, but he reminded him so strongly of Sephiroth, even if he didn’t look like him at all. It was that wing. It felt wrong. At the same time he didn’t give a damn.

And it wasn’t that Vincent had never been with a man, because he had been with Veld. Veld, who sent him to Nibelheim, who put him out there to remind him that he had a job to do. That he couldn’t just fall in love and grow complacent. But he did love Veld. He loved him with an intensity that was startling. Once he was in Nibelheim, though, he realized it was simple transference. His father had never really loved him, and Veld, who was older, wiser, had taken care of Vincent in a way that his father never did. It wasn’t that Grimoire was not kind. He tried. But Vincent was moody and prone to brood. And fight. He got in trouble often, had gotten kicked out of every school Grimoire put him in. He was trying to groom him for the sciences, but Vincent was not a scientist. He lost interest.

He realized his love for Veld was misplaced when he fell slowly and startlingly intensely in love with Lucrecia like it was the first time he’d ever felt anything. And for what it was worth, he believed she really loved him too. He knew it was why she imbued him with Chaos, because she was horrified that Hojo had killed him, and she wanted him to live on. How could she have known she had damned him to an eternal life devoid of meaning? A life without her was a life not worth living. And yet.

So when Genesis buried his fingers in Vincent’s hair and trembled with pleasure, calling another’s name, _his _name, Vincent did not mind. It was his sin that had damned Genesis’s lover. It was his sin that moved him to comfort him now.

Vincent kept Genesis in Kalm, in his house, his secret. He knew Genesis would eventually grow restless. He knew it and yet he kept pretending that every day was the same. Go out, get food, return, lay with Genesis in the dark. It was comforting. He should not have let himself be comforted. He didn’t deserve it.

So when he found that one day Genesis was just simply gone, he said nothing. He didn’t know what Genesis’s motivations were. He had never asked. But maybe, just maybe, he would see him again one day.


End file.
